Editions

Creating meta/virtual NuGet packages to encapsulate frequently used collections of dependencies can be an effective way to both simplify their consumption as well as streamline the process of integrating and testing new versions using tools like Dependabot.

Tracking down unexpected allocations in a high-performance .NET parsing library.

Have you tried using the new System.CommandLine packages? This blog shows you how to build up a command line tool quickly and easily, using dependency injection for the initialisation.

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.

Azure Synapse Analytics is Microsoft's new unified cloud analytics platform, which will surely be playing a big part in many organizations' technology stacks in the near future. For many organizations, Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are the infrastructure deployment method of choice. This blog explains how to deploy an Azure Synapse Analytics workspace using an ARM template.

Serverless data architectures enable leaner data insights and operations. How do you reap the rewards while avoiding the potential pitfalls?

At endjin we solve complex problems which cover a huge range of cloud services, data science techniques and industries. The work we do is massively varied and in this there is a huge opportunity. Hear about Carmel's experience in completing her apprenticeship here at endjin, and why you should consider our apprenticeship scheme!

We all get nervous in the run up to a public speaking event. However, there are things we can do which help alleviate some of the pressure. Here are 5 quick tips around preparing for a talk!

There are many different paths into the tech industry, Carmel has been speaking at some local schools about joining the industry from a scientific background. In this post she discusses the crucial tools which science gives you which can help you succeed in tech!

This blog gives an example of a pattern used for asynchronous initialisation. This pattern allows you to construct readonly objects. It also allows you to use the new nullable references features to ensure your classes are always fully instantiated.

Serverless data architectures enable leaner data insights and operations. How do you reap the rewards while avoiding the potential pitfalls?

Did you know that Azure Synapse has great support for .NET and #csharp? Learning new languages is often a barrier to digital transformation, being able to use existing people, skills, tools and engineering disciplines can be a massive advantage.

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.

Tracking down unexpected allocations in a high-performance .NET parsing library.

Azure AD B2C is easy to integrate and configure for simple sign-in / sign-up authentication. But there's a step change in complexity as soon as you want to do something outside of the built-in user flows. An "invite user" flow is one such example, but it's also a fairly common requirement in any business or team orientated SaaS application, which makes AAD B2C as less attractive choice. This post describes an alternative approach for this authentication feature that avoids the need for AAD B2C custom policies, allowing you to keep authentication as simple as possible.

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.

Azure Synapse Analytics is Microsoft's new unified cloud analytics platform, which will surely be playing a big part in many organizations' technology stacks in the near future. For many organizations, Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are the infrastructure deployment method of choice. This blog explains how to deploy an Azure Synapse Analytics workspace using an ARM template.

Serverless data architectures enable leaner data insights and operations. How do you reap the rewards while avoiding the potential pitfalls?

Serverless data architectures enable leaner data insights and operations. How do you reap the rewards while avoiding the potential pitfalls?

There is a new service in town that promises to transform the way you query the contents of your data lake. Azure Synapse Analytics comes with a new offering called SQL Serverless allowing you to query your data on-demand with no need for pre-provisioned resources.When we heard about the new service we were keen to get involved, so for the last 10 months we've been working with the SQL Serverless product group to provide feedback on the service and to help ensure it meets our customers needs. During this time we've put it through it's paces by implementing a range of real-world use cases. We were particularly interested to see how it stacked up as a replacement for Data Lake Analytics, where to date there has been no clear and easy migration path.

Have you or are you about to invest in Azure Databricks? If so, the new Spark offering in Azure Synapse Analytics is likely to have grabbed your attention and rightly so. Why is Microsoft putting yet another Spark offering on the table and what does it mean for you?

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.

Tracking down unexpected allocations in a high-performance .NET parsing library.

Azure Synapse Analytics is Microsoft's new unified cloud analytics platform, which will surely be playing a big part in many organizations' technology stacks in the near future. For many organizations, Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are the infrastructure deployment method of choice. This blog explains how to deploy an Azure Synapse Analytics workspace using an ARM template.

At endjin we solve complex problems which cover a huge range of cloud services, data science techniques and industries. The work we do is massively varied and in this there is a huge opportunity. Hear about Carmel's experience in completing her apprenticeship here at endjin, and why you should consider our apprenticeship scheme!

A few years ago, I attended a Guardian 1-day Masterclass - Introduction to Data Visualisation. What I did not know then was that it would have a profound effect on how I view design. This blog is a recap of that day and reference points to consider when designing and creating graphics for data visualisation.

It is possibly that I have only recently discovered one of my favourite pieces of UX whilst on lockdown - Mobile cheques deposits via digital imaging in my banking app. In this short post I share my experience of discovering a simple but practical piece of UX that made me happy.

Creating meta/virtual NuGet packages to encapsulate frequently used collections of dependencies can be an effective way to both simplify their consumption as well as streamline the process of integrating and testing new versions using tools like Dependabot.

Azure Synapse Analytics is Microsoft's new unified cloud analytics platform, which will surely be playing a big part in many organizations' technology stacks in the near future. For many organizations, Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are the infrastructure deployment method of choice. This blog explains how to deploy an Azure Synapse Analytics workspace using an ARM template.

One very useful but little used pattern when working with Resource Manager templates, is the ability to use parameters to optionally deploy resources, constrain certain resource configurations based on other user defined parameters, or to toggle parameters based on other values. This blog post explores some of these options.

Azure AD B2C is easy to integrate and configure for simple sign-in / sign-up authentication. But there's a step change in complexity as soon as you want to do something outside of the built-in user flows. An "invite user" flow is one such example, but it's also a fairly common requirement in any business or team orientated SaaS application, which makes AAD B2C as less attractive choice. This post describes an alternative approach for this authentication feature that avoids the need for AAD B2C custom policies, allowing you to keep authentication as simple as possible.

Ian Griffiths is talking about the Reactive Extensions for .NET at dotnetsheff. Learn the ideas behind Rx, and see it applied in an IoT applicable to upload clinical monitoring data to the cloud.

This blog post explains how you can automatically open a web browser in either private browsing mode or with a custom user profile when debugging web applications from Visual Studio.

Serverless data architectures enable leaner data insights and operations. How do you reap the rewards while avoiding the potential pitfalls?

I was recently invited on to Microsoft Mechanics to talk about the new on-demand SQL Serverless offering within Azure Synapse. If you have been following along with my previous blog posts you will know that we've been hard at work applying Azure Synapse against real customer workloads. In the video I take you through the service by solving a real-world IoT problem for one of our telco customers.

We use Wardley Mapping as a technique to give us situational awareness in our technical decision making process. We're sharing our Office 365 Templates for PowerPoint and Visio, so that you can make use of them too.

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.

Tracking down unexpected allocations in a high-performance .NET parsing library.

I was recently invited on to Microsoft Mechanics to talk about the new on-demand SQL Serverless offering within Azure Synapse. If you have been following along with my previous blog posts you will know that we've been hard at work applying Azure Synapse against real customer workloads. In the video I take you through the service by solving a real-world IoT problem for one of our telco customers.

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.

Have you or are you about to invest in Azure Databricks? If so, the new Spark offering in Azure Synapse Analytics is likely to have grabbed your attention and rightly so. Why is Microsoft putting yet another Spark offering on the table and what does it mean for you?

For years we have been building modern cloud data solutions on Azure and helping our customers transform their use of data to drive outcomes. Here are 5 reasons why Azure Synapse Analytics might just be the service that we have been crying out for.

Tracking down unexpected allocations in a high-performance .NET parsing library.

Improve the already-great Windows Terminal experience by following these tips for customizing the application to work best for you.

During our projects at endjin, we often find ourselves evangelising Behaviour Driven Development, and specifically SpecFlow. In this post we look at a technique for defining complex test data objects in your Gherkin feature files, which we've also made available via the endjin-sponsored Corvus.NET project.

Here is a quick tip on how to remove column summarisation from a matrix in Power BI!

Here's a quick tip on how to alter the sort order of a column in Power BI!

Making your Power BI reports accessible is crucial, and one important aspect is legibility. If you're using background colours to represent certain categories, then you need any text that's used in conjunction with that background to be as clear as possible. This blog demonstrates how to dynamically select the best font colour to overlay on any chosen background colour.

Do you need to encrypt a piece of data in your application? Do you want Azure Key Vault to secure the key? Well, using C# along with a couple of libraries from the Azure SDK, it couldn't be easier to get up and running. This blog explains how to do just that.

Have you ever needed an automated process to use alternative credentials for a subset of tasks? This post will demonstrate a technique that allows you setup multiple, concurrent authenticated sessions when using the azure-cli and switch freely between them.

Have you or are you about to invest in Azure Databricks? If so, the new Spark offering in Azure Synapse Analytics is likely to have grabbed your attention and rightly so. Why is Microsoft putting yet another Spark offering on the table and what does it mean for you?

Microsoft recently shot a video interviewing endjin co-founder, Howard van Rooijen, and Director of Engineering, James Broome, about how Microsoft has helped endjin grow over the past decade. This posts the top 10 ways in which Microsoft helped - from providing access to valuable software and services, to opening up sales channels, to helping to navigate the minefield of UK Financial Services regulations around cloud adoption.

In this post we discuss the characteristics of a great FinTech startup, and the importance of the API Economy to innovation in Financial Services.

There is a lot of hype about the blockchain - usually wrapped up with talk about Bitcoin and crypto-currencies. In this article, we look at its impact on trust, and auditability in financial services, and why it may (or may not) be appropriate for your solutions.

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.

Serverless data architectures enable leaner data insights and operations. How do you reap the rewards while avoiding the potential pitfalls?

There is a new service in town that promises to transform the way you query the contents of your data lake. Azure Synapse Analytics comes with a new offering called SQL Serverless allowing you to query your data on-demand with no need for pre-provisioned resources.When we heard about the new service we were keen to get involved, so for the last 10 months we've been working with the SQL Serverless product group to provide feedback on the service and to help ensure it meets our customers needs. During this time we've put it through it's paces by implementing a range of real-world use cases. We were particularly interested to see how it stacked up as a replacement for Data Lake Analytics, where to date there has been no clear and easy migration path.

Making your Power BI reports accessible is crucial, and one important aspect is legibility. If you're using background colours to represent certain categories, then you need any text that's used in conjunction with that background to be as clear as possible. This blog demonstrates how to dynamically select the best font colour to overlay on any chosen background colour.

A few years ago, I attended a Guardian 1-day Masterclass - Introduction to Data Visualisation. What I did not know then was that it would have a profound effect on how I view design. This blog is a recap of that day and reference points to consider when designing and creating graphics for data visualisation.

It is possibly that I have only recently discovered one of my favourite pieces of UX whilst on lockdown - Mobile cheques deposits via digital imaging in my banking app. In this short post I share my experience of discovering a simple but practical piece of UX that made me happy.

Making your Power BI reports accessible is crucial, and one important aspect is legibility. If you're using background colours to represent certain categories, then you need any text that's used in conjunction with that background to be as clear as possible. This blog demonstrates how to dynamically select the best font colour to overlay on any chosen background colour.

A few years ago, I attended a Guardian 1-day Masterclass - Introduction to Data Visualisation. What I did not know then was that it would have a profound effect on how I view design. This blog is a recap of that day and reference points to consider when designing and creating graphics for data visualisation.

In this post we show a smooth entry animation for D3.js donut (or pie) charts, using a combination of a sweep and a zoom to give a corkscrew-like effect.